Thursday, May 01, 2008

One can imagine all sorts of possible alternate explanations for this story:

Florida police are investigating the apparent suicide of a woman they believe to be the so-called D.C. Madam, who was found dead in the Florida mobile home of the madam's mother Thursday.

The madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, was recently convicted on federal charges stemming from operating a prostitution service in the Washington, D.C. area with a number of high-profile clients. She was scheduled to be sentenced July 24.

Palfrey told ABC News last year she would never return to prison, after serving time in the 1990s for other prostitution-related charges. "I sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years."

Local police responding to a call late Thursday morning discovered the woman's body in a storage shed to the side of the home, according to a statement released by the Tarpon Springs, Fla. Police. Hand-written notes were found nearby which "describes the victim's intention to take her life," according to the statement.

Our good friends over at Agitprop have been all over this scandal involving Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, as well as other high profile Washingtonians, such as Randall L. Tobias, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Harlan Ullman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who brought you the war you are currently tuned into.

Ironically, Tobias was Bush's first AIDS czar...

Now, notes are fine, but given that Palfrey was convicted and likely to be sentenced to jail just ahead of the Republican National Convention (not to mention the Democratic National Convention) in an election year, can you really rule out the potential for, well, a liquidation?

The rumours at the time of the Vitter revelations was that Palfrey's black book contained some pretty heavy hitting DC types, which sure sounds a bit higher on the food chain than a Presidential appointee, a Senator barely clinging to his job, and a conservative think-tanker.

The timing is more than suspicious, to say the least, although in fairness to Palfrey, her conviction was within the last fourteen days. It's possible that overwhelmed her.

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing